This Guy Certainly Has a Phat Ride

Tight end Alex Holmes and offensive tackle Sam Baker of USC were recent guests of Todd Wright on ESPN Radio when the subject of Baker’s father came up. David Baker, a former mayor of Irvine who played basketball at UC Irvine, is the commissioner of the Arena Football League.

Sam Baker is 6 feet 5, 290 pounds. His father is even bigger.

“There were days when he was pushing 450, but he’s gotten into shape and is around 360,” Sam Baker said of his father.

Said Holmes: “His dad is the biggest guy I’ve ever seen. He isn’t fat, either. He’s like a giant.”

David Baker is pretty hip too.

“He drives a Navigator with $40,000 rims,” Holmes said. “I thought it was owned by some rapper or famous person, but when I pulled up beside him, I saw it was just Sam’s dad.”

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Trivia time: On Sept. 7, 1993, Mark Whiten of the St. Louis Cardinals accomplished what two feats that had never been done in one game?

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Any excuse to celebrate: ESPN, to mark its 25th anniversary today, has devoted 32 hours of programming over the last four months to a project called ESPN25.

“ESPN is the worldwide leader in many things, including celebrating anniversaries,” wrote Ed Sherman of the Chicago Tribune. “So when ESPN started crowing about its 25th anniversary, we had to remind the PR machine that we all wrote stories for the 20th bash. Wasn’t that, what, five years ago?”

Any day now, the PR staff will announce plans for its 30th anniversary.

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Smashin’ fashion: New York Post reporter Anna Jane Grossman decided to walk a mile in Serena Williams’ shoes. So she donned an outfit similar to the one Williams wore at the U.S. Open last week -- a mesh short dress with black elasticized-vinyl knee-high boots over black sneakers -- and walked around Manhattan. Among her stops was a gentlemen’s club.

“I love the shoes,” one of the female employees said. “But do they make them with heels?”

When Grossman told the club’s manager she was a reporter, he said, “Oh, I thought you were looking for a job.”

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Relatively speaking: Brooks Robinson, a guest analyst on TBS on Friday night, when the Atlanta Braves were playing Montreal, said he visited with Expo Manager Frank Robinson before the game.

“Somebody said, ‘Hey, there’s the Robinson brothers.’ I said, ‘No, we’re only cousins.’ ”

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Another possibility: Reader Mike Kilgore offers this suggested title for the proposed Bob Knight sitcom: “Mad About Everything!”

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Looking back: On this day in 1980, John McEnroe defeated Bjorn Borg, 7-6, 6-1, 6-7, 5-7, 6-4, to win the U.S. Open.

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Trivia answer: Whiten hit four home runs and drove in 12 runs in the nightcap of a doubleheader against Cincinnati.

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And finally: Reader Dan Place of Arcadia says he knows a golfer whose game is so bad that he had to have his ball retriever re-gripped.

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Larry Stewart can be reached at [email protected].